Sister Wendy's Story of Painting

By the inimitable Sister Wendy Becket. It is one of the most readable art history books I've ever seen (and I've seen quite a few ). Other than that, it's a beautiful book, crammed full of color prints. Before this book was published, I would have chosen TAML, but I much prefer Sister Wendy's positive, enthusiastic comments. AML includes, as I'm sure I have mentioned before, too many references to the dark side of artist's lives for my tastes, but it does have some nice, convenient charts. On the other had, the lovely Sister has some wonderful point-by-point analyses of important paintings. Both have nudes.